Von Trier’s Melancholia kicks in

by Annika Pham

28/07/2010

To mark the beginning of production of his new film Melancholia, Danish director Lars von Trier met with the local press on Monday. Sitting in front of a packed gathering at Film i Väst’s Trollhättan studios in Western Sweden, where von Trier is shooting for the fourth time, the director and his stellar cast – father and son Alexander and Stellan Skarsgård, Kiefer Sutherland, Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg – remained very discreet about the film’s plot.

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“There is a wedding and melancholia, but I don’t want to say any more than that,” offered von Trier in his usual monosyllabic and enigmatic way. Revealing little more than the fact that Alexander Skarsgård will marry Dunst and their union will end dramatically only a few days after the ceremony.

However, US actor Sutherland added that Melancholia will have a “brutal honesty”, which he particularly likes in the director’s films. He also said that he loved “filming ‘live’, without any rehearsals”, a first-time experience in his career. Dunst, who plays Gainsbourg’s sister, described Melancholia as a “poetic film”.

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